“Article 225-6: If someone has at least one Muslim parent at the time of conception but after the age of maturity, without pretending to be a Muslim, chooses blasphemy is considered a Parental Apostate.”

I guess that would cover any adult Baha’i with mixed Baha’i/Muslim parentage, although of course not Baha’is with two Baha’i parents.

Have you seen any research into how widespread this mixed parentage is?

“The Baha’is have reason to be worried. As they said today, the draft code’s section on apostasy mandates the death penalty for anyone who changes his religion from Islam. It also extends to naming as an apostate any follower of a religion other than Islam who had one parent who was a Muslim at the time of his or her conception. For example, the child of a Muslim and a Christian who chose to be a Christian would be considered an apostate and subject to capital punishment.

“Dr Nazila Ghanea, lecturer in human rights law at Oxford university and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Religion and Human Rights, said: ‘The laws will give the Iranian government legal grounds to resort to taking the lives of any of its citizens who choose to adopt a religion other than Islam. The code is a gross violation by the Islamic Republic of Iran of its obligations as a party to a number of international human rights instruments, particularly those relating to freedom of religion or belief.’

“‘Among those most affected if the law is passed will be members of Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, the Bahá’í faith. Following the 1979 Iranian revolution, when it became known that Bahá’í men and women had been tortured and executed purely on grounds of their religious beliefs, the international community made it clear at the UN and in the media that such abuses were not tolerable,’ the community said today. Since the 1980s, although the community continues to be severely oppressed, the Bahá’ís are no longer facing mass executions.

“‘Iran’s government and clergy have made concerted efforts to quietly subjugate the Bahá’í community and eliminate it as a viable entity in the country,’ said Dr Ghanea, who published a book on the human rights of the Bahá’ís in Iran in 2002. ‘With this penal code, they will have legal grounds to resort once again to taking the lives of Bahá’ís – and of any other of Iran’s citizens who choose to adopt a religion other than Islam.’”

My understanding is that the vast majority of Baha’is in Iran were born to Baha’i parents. Although some were born to mixed parentage, it seems on initial reading that this law would only class those people as an apostate if they had themselves declared themselves Muslim after reaching adulthood.

The clauses on heresy would only seem to apply to those inventing heresies – as the Baha’i Faith was “invented” many generations ago it would surely not apply?

I’m afraid the criminalisation of apostacy is common throughout the Islamic world- often with the death penalty. Iran is by no means unusual in this regard